The Cab of the Sleeping Horse eBook

“Nonsense!” he replied. “I
was inclined to think so at first; your fine acting
and man’s conceit, I reckon. But my conceit
has been punctured, and you’ve slipped a bit
in your acting; therefore, to descend to the extremely
common-place, the jig is up.”

“And the next lead is yours!” she laughed
back.

“That is precisely why I asked you the game—­so
I could make an intelligible lead.”

“Ask Mrs. Clephane!” she suggested.

“I’ll do it,” said he—­and
bowed himself out.

“Do it? Of course, you’ll do it,”
Madeline Spencer gritted, as the door closed behind
him. “I’ve no chance, it seems, against
a red-haired woman. The other one also had red
hair.” She seized a vase from the table
at her hand, and hurled it across the room. It
crushed in fragments against the wall. “Damn
Mrs. Clephane!” she said softly.

XXI

THE KEY-WORD

Promptly at ten o’clock Marston walked into
Carpenter’s office and sent in his card.

It found Carpenter pacing up and down, and frowning
at a paper spread open on his desk. At the messenger’s
apologetically discreet cough, he glanced around and
took the extended card.

“Show him in!” he snapped, and swept the
paper from the desk and into a drawer.... “Good-morning,
sir!” as Marston bowed on the threshold; then,
without any preliminaries: “What success?”

“I have the French code-book,” Marston
replied.

“With you?”

Marston drew out the slender book. “It
embraces all their codes, I believe,” he remarked.

“H-u-m!” said Carpenter thoughtfully,
retrieving the paper he had just swept into the drawer.
“How are we to work it, Mr. Marston?”

“As allies,” Marston replied. “I’m
perfectly willing to let you have the book and everything
in it, if you will let me have a copy of the letter.
I’m confident that the key-word is here; I’m
equally confident that the letter does not involve,
either directly or indirectly, the United States.
I understand that the letter is in the cipher of the
Blocked-Out Square; in this book there are two pages
and more of key-words to this Square, the last dozen
or so of which are added in writing. If the letter
is in that cipher, we should have no particular difficulty
in finding the key-word. I would suggest, however,
that we first try the last word on the list—­maybe
we won’t have to go any farther.”

“Very well,” said Carpenter, briskly.

The advantage was all with him. If Marston thought
the letter was only a line and that he could remember
the letters used, he was in for a shock. No man
living could remember twenty spilled alphabets; and
if he attempted to make a copy it could easily be
prevented. The Fifth Secretary spread the paper
on the table.

“Here is a copy of the cipher letter in question—­we
had it made large for convenience,” he explained.
“The original is in the safe; you’ll wish
to compare it with the copy, so we’ll have it
here.”